Special Needs': Children No One Wants

March 10, 1985|by BOB WITTMAN JR., Sunday Call-Chronicle

There are 1,000 children in Pennsylvania whom no one wants. They are infants and teen-agers, boys and girls. You can see their hopeful faces in the loose-leaf adoption exchange books, one gray photograph and scanty biography per page.

Couples wanting to adopt a child through organizations like the Catholic Social Agency might have to wait five years before infants become available.

But the children no one wants are available now. And chances are good that a couple willing to adopt one of these children would not need to meet the same strict income requirements, would not necessarily need to be childless, and would not be subject to the usual upper age limits. In fact, they wouldn't have to be a couple at all. With these children, even adoptions by single people are welcomed.

The state is particularly anxious to see these children settled permanently in adoptive homes. In some instances it will issue medical assistance cards, daily maintenance subsidies, even one-time grants for the purchase of special equipment.

But these children no one wants come with a host of special needs. Some were born with physical deformities, others with extraordinary medical conditions such as spina bifida or Down's syndrome. Many are considered "ethnically disadvantaged" or come from multiracial origins.

On top of that, most of these children come from backgrounds of cultural, educational or economic deprivation so severe that it has arrested their emotional development. Some have been mistreated as infants and have been left with permanent injuries. Some become unwanted simply because they are members of large sibling groups, others simply because they are considered too old.

"I'd say most of our placements have been seriously deprived or physically abused - or both," said Mary Kingsley, adoption supervisor for the Northampton County Office of Children and Youth.

So it's not surprising that these youngsters whom no one wants are called children of "special needs."

"The system has sort of let these kids down," said Mary Beth Hughes, director of adoption services at Concern, an agency based in Fleetwood. "They've fallen through the cracks." But not entirely.

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More than anything else, Wayne and Donna Kromer wanted children. Although they have strong parenting inclinations, nature didn't cooperate. Even after participating in a three-year infertility program, the Allentown couple still found themselves childless.

That's when they decided to explore the idea of adoption.

"What we really wanted was to be parents," says Donna, "but you don't have to have biological children to be parents."

The Kromers never considered approaching the Catholic Social Agency, or organizations like the Lutheran Home at Topton, where the wait is almost as long. They neverconsidered adopting one of the "normal" healthy Caucasian infants that are so in demand.

For one thing, they didn't want to wait that long. But there were other reasons, too.

"We said if we were going to adopt, we wanted to adopt a child that really needs a home," said Donna.

Sixteen months ago the Kromers found a baby that clearly needed a home. The adoption was finalized on Jan. 18. The couple is ecstatic.

Little 21-month-old David is afflicted with Down's syndrome. He has only recently learned to pull himself up and stand. He knows his name. If you ask him to wave, he'll flap his little wrist. He laughs often.

"He's a child just like any other child," said Donna. "He has the same feelings and needs as any other child. It just takes him a little longer to learn things."

The Kromers considered other children. One was a 3-year-old with cerebral palsy. Another had physical handicaps that resulted from parental abuse. A third had a variety of medical problems, including the loss of the ability to hear.

But Donna had a baby brother that died shortly after his birth. And doctors afterward speculated that the child had Down's syndrome. So when the Kromers learned of the existence of David, he became their first choice.

Even so, they considered themselves lucky to get him. Aside from the symptoms associated with Down's syndrome, David was considered medically fit. And since he was still only a couple of months old, he was still developmentally untouched by others.

The agency called Concern specializes in special needs adoptions. It also becomes involved in the more traditional infant adoptions that result from its unplanned-pregnancy program and the intercountry adoption of children from South America and Asia. But since the agency's adoption program began in 1980, it has placed more than 100 children, and the largest number of those have been children of special needs.